EU To Launch Membership Talks With Ukraine, Moldova
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BRUSSELS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – European Union envoys “agreed in principle” late Friday on launching EU membership talks with wartorn Ukraine and Moldova after Hungary withdrew its opposition, officials said.
“Ambassadors agreed in principle on the negotiating frameworks for the accession negotiations of Ukraine and Moldova,” the EU’s Belgian presidency confirmed.
“The Belgian presidency [of the EU’s decision-making European Council] will call the first intergovernmental conferences on 25 June,” it added.
Hungary, which maintains close ties with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had opposed Ukrainian EU membership talks, saying it wasn’t ready to join the 27-nation bloc.
Yet EU leaders had made it clear they wanted to start accession talks before Hungary takes over the half-year rotating EU presidency on July 1.
Hungary’s government had been pressured to agree on membership negotiations with Ukraine, which could take years.
RECEIVING MONEY?
Budapest appeared to hope it could help to receive billions in EU funding, which Brussels has frozen due to concerns over rule-of-law violations and the government’s perceived lack of democratic credentials.
The decision by Hungary not to veto accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova came after Budapest also agreed this week not to block NATO military alliance aid to Ukraine.
In exchange, NATO’s chief said that Hungary wouldn’t have to be involved in providing military assistance to Ukraine.
After meeting Wednesday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Budapest that he “accepts” the position of Hungary not to participate in NATO efforts for Ukraine.
Orbán said it was time for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow to end a war in which possible hundreds of thousands were killed and injured.
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